I hope you have enjoyed Clare’s posts on the blog so far. Today was officially our first day in NOLA! And here are some of the things that we did today:

I am part of the Food and Justice team here in New Orleans. This morning we went to check our CRISP farms in the 9th Ward. CRISP stands for Community Research In Sustainable Permaculture and was established in 2013. Some of the cool things that grow in that garden are pomegranate, goji berry, arugula, parsley and many others! Our first job was to chop the Chinese cabbage in the garden. We chopped the cabbage and cut it so it can be used to make kimchi. We added sea salt to the cabbage to help preserve it! Close to the root of the cabbage we found lots and lots and lots of slugs!

New Orleans has a lot of wild chickens. The farm often has to deal with chickens getting into their plants. We also helped Zach at CRISP farms build a mesh cage around some of the plants to stop the chickens from getting in. We reused some PVC pipe and mesh to help protect the plants. We also spent some time taking compost and adding it to the plants. It was a fun day at CRISP farms and it was great to see an urban farm in action!

Today in NOLA it is Lundi Gras (which also means Fat Monday) as part of the Mardi Gras festival. After our work at the farms today we got the chance to go to the Krewe of Orpheus parade. We got to catch Mardi Gras beads and watch the parade. Despite the pouring rain, we had a really great time! We ended the day with gelato and king cake. It was a great first day!

Keep checking out our blog, for what we are up to here in NOLA. And happy Mardi Gras!